Designed by The Away Days is a 2019 dream pop single that questions fate versus free will and unseen control, paired with a chase-led video set on the outskirts of Istanbul.
It starts with a tight breath and a simple question that refuses to let go: are we all designed to be what we’ll be.
The Away Days thread that thought through synth haze and soft-edged guitars, then film it like a fugitive dream unfolding on the outskirts of Istanbul.
Designed arrived on April 5, 2019, through Epic Istanbul, a division of Sony Music Turkey, and it still pricks at the idea that someone, somewhere, might be pulling the strings.
The line of inquiry on the track is as clear as a studio whiteboard and as foggy as memory.
The lyric pivots on repetitions that feel like checking a door twice: the lower you fall, the slower you die, then that refrain about design and fate that circles back like a late-night thought you can’t switch off.
Play it and notice how the band treats momentum as a soft surge rather than a crash.
There’s air around the kick, guitars that glow more than they bite, and synths that don’t crowd the room.
That poise fits the duo’s dream pop calling card, familiar to anyone who came aboard during the Dreamed at Dawn era, yet here it feels warmer, smaller, closer to skin.
Then the picture sharpens. The video, directed by vocalist and guitarist Can Özen, plays like a short thriller set near a village outside Istanbul.
A girl is chased by a life hacker, then the frame flips and we see that hunter might be controlled too.
Multiple levels of control, nested loops, a story you can read as algorithm anxiety or everyday submission to routines, bosses, appetites.
Sony Music Turkey’s write-up spells it out with a sci-fi tint, and suddenly that chorus feels less theoretical and more like a pushback.
What keeps you watching is the way sound and image agree. The guitars carry a kind of amber glow that makes running look like floating.
The vocal doubles are feathered rather than stacked, so even when the words ask heavy questions, the delivery stays human.
Designed didn’t storm big-box charts, but the path made sense for a cult favorite: a blog premiere, label support, a YouTube home on Epic Istanbul’s channel, and a steady afterlife on streaming.
Drop into the lyrics again and the questions keep reshaping. All is gone, we’re here, the singer notes, then looks up at a selfish sun, then wonders if life turns out to what it would be now.
It is less about answers and more about staying with the ask.
The band trusts repetition the way a poet trusts a refrain; the words turn like a key that almost fits, and that tension is the point.
The Away Days have been here before with shimmering singles and internationally noticed videos, but Designed feels like a clean hinge in their catalog.
It’s their first 2019 release, and the visual narrative is a clear step into darker fiction.
That clarity is why the song keeps getting recommended alongside their later work, and why it becomes a gateway track for new listeners who stumble in.